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Tolerance
By ella | February 2, 2005
It’s several years since I lived in Alabama. So I still despair that
the teaching of evolution is not given equal weight with the teaching of creationism in classrooms in the Southern States.
My best friend at school (a UK school) came from a very religious family. We both sat through Divinity lessons and biology lessons. We were taught about all faiths and about creationism and evolution, as might be expected at a UK school. So when Harriet came to stay with me during the holidays and we ended up having a discussion about evolution (don’t ask me why two fifteen year olds were talking about that, rather than boys) she point blank refused to acknowledge that evolution might have taken place instead of creationism. I don’t want to get into a debate about which is right and wrong as I totally respect that other people have entirely different beliefs from me. What surprised me then about Harriet and surprises me now about the teaching in Alabama’s schools is the lack of a balanced view so that people can make up their own minds about what they believe. Harriet had clearly made up her own mind after hearing all the ‘evidence’ so to speak. But her refusal to accept that I might believe something else was quite upsetting. I regret that after that conversation we drifted apart as friends but it taught me a valuable lesson in tolerance, if only because I was on the receiving end of someone else’s intolerance.
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Categories: Daily Life
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